Embryonic stem (ES) cell lines are derived from the pluripotent cells of the early embryo. These cell lines, potentially, can maintain a normal karyotype through an infinite life span in vitro and their pluripotent stem cells can differentiate into any cell type. ES cell lines derived from human blastocysts allow the study of the cellular and molecular biology of early human development, functional genomics, generation of differentiated cells from the stem cells for use in transplantation or drug discovery and screening in vitro.
The mammalian nervous system is a derivative of the ectodermal germ layer of the post-implantation embryo. During the process of axis formation, it is thought that inductive signals elaborated by several regions of the embryo (the anterior visceral endoderm and the early gastrula organiser) induce the pluripotent cells of the epiblast to assume an anterior neural fate. The molecular identity of the factors elaborated by these tissues which direct neurogenesis is unknown, but there is strong evidence from lower vertebrates that antagonists of the Wnt and BMP families of signalling molecules may be involved.
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent cells which are thought to correspond to the epiblast of the pre-implantation embryo. Mouse ES cells are able to give rise to neural tissue in vitro either spontaneously or during embryoid body formation. The neural tissue often forms in these circumstances in amongst a mixture of a range of cell types.
However, differentiation to a specific neural cell population is required to realize many of the potential applications of ES cells in regenerative medicine of the central nervous system and neuroscience. Alteration of the conditions of culture, or subsequent selection of neural cells from this mixture, has been used in the mouse system to produce relatively pure populations of neural progenitor cells from differentiating cultures of mouse ES cells. These neural progenitors gave rise to the neuronal and glial lineages in-vitro. Transplantation experiments have demonstrated the potential of mouse ES derived neural cells to participate in brain development and to correct various deficits in animal model systems.
Human ES cells have been demonstrated to give rise to neural progenitor cells in vitro and have further demonstrated the capability of the progenitors to differentiate in vitro into mature neurons. In Reubinoff et al, 2000, 2001 PCT/AU99/00990, PCT/AU01/00278 and PCT/AU01/00735 methods are described that allow the derivation of highly enriched (>95%) expandable populations of proliferating neural progenitors from human ES cells. The neural progenitors could be induced to differentiate in vitro into astrocyte, oligodendrocyte and mature neurons. Transplantation experiments demonstrated the potential of the neural progenitors to integrate extensively into the developing host mouse brain, to respond to local host cues, and to construct the neuronal and glial lineages in vivo (Reubinoff et al., 2001, PCT/AU01/00278).
To derive the neural progenitors, mixed somatic differentiation was induced by prolonged culture of undifferentiated human ES cells without replacement of the mouse embryonic fibroblast feeder layer (Reubinoff et al 2000, 2001 PCT/AU99/00990, PCT/AU01/00278). Under these culture conditions, distinct areas comprised of small piled, tightly packed cells that do not express markers of undifferentiated ES cells or early neuroectodermal progenitors were formed among many other cell types. When these areas were mechanically removed and further culttured in defined media that promote the propagation of neural progenitors, they gave rise to the highly enriched preparations of the neural progenitors.
Recently, others have also reported the derivation of neural progenitors from human ES cells (Zhang et al., 2001, Carpenter et al., 2001). However, these authors induced non-specific mixed differentiation of human ES cells by the formation of embryoid bodies (EBs). Following plating of the EBs and culture in defined medium supplemented with mitogens, enrichment for neural progenitors was accomplished by cell sorting or selective separation following enzymatic digestion. Directed differentiation of human ES cells into neural progenitors and further into specific types of neural cells was not reported by these authors.
Directed differentiation of human ES cells into neural progenitors and further on into specific types of neural cells may be highly valuable for basic and applied studies of CNS development and disease. Controlled differentiation of human ES cells into the neural lineage will allow experimental dissection of the events during early development of the nervous system, and the identification of new genes and polypeptide factors which may have a therapeutic potential such as induction of regenerative processes. Additional pharmaceutical applications may include the creation of new assays for toxicology and drug discovery, such as high-throughput screens for neuroprotective compounds. Controlled generation of neural progenitors and specific types of neurons or glia cells from human ES cells in vitro may serve as an unlimited donor source of cells for tissue reconstruction and for the delivery and expression of genes in the nervous system.
Directed differentiation of human ES cells into neural progenitors, has been demonstrated with the bone morphogenetic protein antagonist noggin in Pera et al., 2001 and PCT/AU01/00735. Treatment of undifferentiated human ES cell colonies that were cultured on feeders with noggin blocked differentiation into extra embryonic endoderm and uniformly directed the differentiation into a novel cell type (“noggin cells”). Noggin cells are similar in terms of morphology and lack of expression of markers of undifferentiated stem cells or neural progenitors to the small piled, tightly packed cells that were obtained within a mixture of other cell types in high density cultures.
When noggin cells were transferred to defined culture conditions they gave rise to neural progenitors, neurons and glial cells.
A major application of human ES cells may be their potential to serve as a renewable unlimited donor source of cells for transplantation. However, the potential use of human ES cell derived neural cells in regenerative medicine will depend on their capability to restore function. So far the potential of human ES cell derived neural cells to restore function after transplantation has not been demonstrated.
In the mouse, ES cell derived progeny may be functional. Transplantation of low doses of undifferentiated mouse ES cells into the rat striatum results in their differentiation into dopaminergic neurons and restoration of cerebral function and behaviour in animal model of Parkinson's disease (Bjorklund et al 2002). Nevertheless, it should be noted that teratoma tumors were observed in 5 of 22 transplanted animals and in 6 grafted rats no surviving ES cells were found. Teratoma formation and the relatively low survival rate post transplantation preclude the clinical utilization of this approach.
Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder affecting over one million patients in the USA. Pharmacological treatments of the disorder, mainly with L-dopa, have limited long term success and are associated with serious motor side effects. Transplantation of dopaminergic neurons (DA neurons) is an alternative approach that potentially may overcome the drawbacks of pharmacological treatments (Lindvall 1997). Clinical trials of transplantation of fetal derived DA neurons into Parkinson's patients show clinical benefits in some patients (Bjorklund and Lindvall 2000; Freed et al., 2001). Nevertheless, the ethical and practical problems of obtaining sufficient fetal donor tissue severely limit widespread application of this mode of therapy. In vitro production of transplantable dopaminergic cells at a large scale could circumvent this drawbacks A potential source for the unlimited generation of transplantable dopaminergic neurons in vitro is embryonic stem (ES) cell lines. The potential of ES cells to serve as an unlimited donor source of dopaminergic neurons (DA) has been demonstrated in the mouse ES cell system (Lee et al 2000, Kawasaki et al 2000).
Furthermore, functional recovery following transplantation of mouse ES cell-derived DA neurons into an animal model of Parkinson's disease was recently demonstrated (Kim et al., 2002). However, it is known in the art of biology that murine and human ES cells are different in many aspects. Accordingly, methods that are efficient with mouse ES cells may be unsuitable for human pluripotent stem cells. For example, the cytokine leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) can support undifferentiated proliferation of mouse ES cells (Robertson E 1987) while it has no effect on human ES cells (Reubinoff et al., 2000).
FGF8 and SHH signals control dopaminergic cell fate in the anterior neural plate. In the mouse, expansion of mouse ES cell derived neural progenitors in the presence of FGF8 and/or SHH significantly increases the generation of DA neurons (Lee et al 2000). The combination of SHH and FGF8 fails to induce significant dopaminergic differentiation of neurons that are derived from human EC cells (NT2/hNT, Stull and Lacovitti 2001). This further enhances the differences between human and mouse. Human EC cells resemble human ES cells (Pera MF 2000), and their lack of response may suggest that pluripotent stem cells from a human origin as opposed to their mouse counterpart do not respond to the SHH/FGF8 combination.
Human ES cells can spontaneously differentiate into tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) producing neurons (PCT/AU01/00278, Reubinoff et al., 2001). However, there has been no demonstrated control for the production of dopaminergic neurons at high yields from human ES cells and more importantly the directed differentiation toward a cell type which has the potential for transplantation and treatment of neurological conditions.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to direct the differentiation of human ES cells toward a useful cell type and to generate the cell type in high yield to improve the chances of successful transplantation.
Therefore, it is an object to overcome some of these practical problems and problems of the prior art.